Re: tlug: Reading 640 MB MO

[Jim Tittsler <jwt-tlug@example.com>]

On Thu, Sep 03, 1998 at 02:21:51PM +0900, Venkatesh Raghavan wrote:
> Hello,
> I have a 640MB MO Drive on my Linux Machine. I can can 230MB
> "MSDOS" formatted MO but when I try mounting the 230MB
> "MSDOS" formatted MO disk, I get the following error;
> 
> "unable to read partion table
> mount:/dev/sda is not a valid block"
> 
> the mount command I am using is
> 
> mount -t msdos /dev/sda /mnt
> 
> Can anyone tell me how do I read 640 MB MO disk on Linux.
> 

1. 640MB MO media uses 2048 byte sectors. Are you using a recent 2.1.x
kernel?  Or have you patched your 2.0.x kernel to add support for the 640MB
disc's 2048 byte sectors?  (I use the 2.0.x patches found at
http://liniere.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/2048.html )

2. There are (at least) three ways that are used to format/partition MO
disks.  They can be treated as "super floppies" as one unpartitioned mass
or they can be partitioned like a hard disk.  (And some third way that the
Fujitsu formatting software offered me but which seemed to be some unique
partitioning scheme.)  If you are using a 2048-byte-sector-aware kernel,
and can't mount /dev/sda (aka super floppy mode), try running 'fdisk /dev/sda'
and displaying the partition map.  If the disk is partitioned, you'll want
something like 'mount -t msdos /dev/sda1 /mnt'

Jim

-- 
Jim Tittsler, Tokyo   ICQ: 5981586


--------------------------------------------------------------
Next Nomikai: 18 September, 19:30 Tengu TokyoEkiMae 03-3275-3691
Next Meeting: 10 October, Tokyo Station Yaesu central gate 12:30
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsor: PHT, makers of TurboLinux http://www.pht.co.jp